The Four Disciplines of Execution (2024)

My favorite business books are based on hard-won experience.

The ones where the authors have refined their ideas through years of teaching and training — they know what really works and where the pitfalls lie.

The Four Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling is one of the best. A simple (but not easy) framework for ensuring that the most important work gets done, and battle-tested in over a thousand consulting engagements.

A true classic, as relevant for personal life as it is essential for business.

Here is a short summary to help you decide if you want to pick up a copy.

Most executives lament their organization’s inability to follow through on its biggest goals.

4DX attempts to tackle this “strategy/execution gap.” The gap occurs for any goal that needs behavioral change.

The biggest reason people fail to execute on goals is “the whirlwind.”

The whirlwind is the day job; it’s the things that must get done to run the business. It destroys the execution of larger goals. It wins when the organization has too many goals, the goals are unclear, and/or there is no accountability for achieving the goals.

The four disciplines are designed to beat the “Whirlwind” — the day to day business that crowds out action on strategic initiatives. After implementing the four disciplines staff will still spend 80% of their time on the whirlwind — but 20% will be focused on strategic execution.

Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important

Select one, (or at the most two) critical goals at a time. This goal is called your Wildly Important Goal (WIG). This narrowing of focus is essential to ensure that the goal is achieved. WIGs should simple, vital and expressed in the form — “change from X to Y in a specific time period.”

Discipline 2: Act on the Lead Measures

Focus on the activities that drive results. Lag measures describe results, what you are trying to achieve — revenue, profit, market share. Achieving your WIG is a lag measure. Lead measures describe activities or sub-goals which can be acted upon. A good lead measure predicts success on the lag measure, and the team has direct influence over it — it’s not dependent on another team.

Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

To remain engaged, the team should know at all times if they are winning. A visible scoreboard helps the team to work out how to move forward.

Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability

The first three disciplines are preparation; the fourth discipline is execution. Each team responsible for a WIG meets at least weekly in a “WIG session”. At each short session, the team reviews their commitments from the previous session, checks the scoreboard, and makes new, specific personal commitments for the next session.

There are two unalterable rules for a WIG session to be successful. First, the session is held at the same time every time, at least weekly. The meeting is sacrosanct. Second, the whirlwind is not allowed in, no matter how urgent the issue.

Since the WIG sessions are so important, here is a little more detail on them.

WIG sessions are fast-paced, typically 20–30 minutes and have the same agenda:

1. Account: Report on individual commitments made the previous session.
2. Review the scoreboard: Learn and problem-solve.
3. Plan: Make new commitments.

Each commitment made must be a specific deliverable — not a commitment to “work on” something. Each commitment must aim to move the lead measure. A good question each team member can ask is “What are the one or two most important things I can do this week to impact the team’s performance on the scoreboard?” All commitments are personal commitments and need to be completed within a week.

Managers will likely be in two WIG sessions a week, one they lead, and one led by their manager. Frontline teams, such as those in an Emergency Department may need to create a shorter weekly WIG huddle.

The WIG sessions are like experiments where the team tries new ideas and activities and reports back. The level of importance and consistent focus the leadership puts on the WIG sessions determines their effectiveness. That and the fact that people create their own commitments. For many proponents of 4DX the lead measure for success overall is attendance and consistency of WIG sessions.

Common pitfalls

1. Don’t mistake whirlwind tasks for WIG commitments. Ask whether the commitment will impact the scoreboard.
2. Make sure each session has a clear commitment and that they aren’t the same week after week.
3. If someone hasn’t met their commitment:

• Demonstrate respect.
• Reinforce accountability. Don’t accept unfulfilled commitments.
• Encourage performance.

4DX is one of my favorite business books, and one I turn to often. While deceptively simple, it offers a clear framework for solving a critical leadership challenge. Not: What strategy? but, how do we get it done? How do we create behavioral change?

What I find particularly compelling is that the insights are hard-won. The framework was tested and perfected through more than 1500 consulting engagements. You can see that in the practical detail on how to execute the strategies within the book. These ideas are battle-tested. The book, like most business books suffers a little from repetitiveness. The authors have organized it in an iterative structure, with the disciplines summarized, then repeated with more detail, then repeated again with implementation guidance. But there is less padding than most books of the genre and they do a good job answering likely questions and sharing examples and case studies. An essential, straightforward, tactical book that could transform an organization. Highly recommended.

One of the authors, Chris McChesney has a nice short video summary here.